The Big Flop - Juicero Gets Squeezed Out with Chelsea Devantez & Solomon Georgio | 8

Episode Date: October 16, 2023

What do Gwyneth Paltrow and Oprah have that you don’t have? A $700 juicer…and lots and lots of money to buy it with. The Juicero was supposed to revolutionize at-home juicing and make organic, cold pressed juice accessible to everyone. The main problem? It was only accessible to the super rich. It still became one of the buzziest products of 2016, but after a Bloomberg exposé of the machine went viral, not even Goop would touch it. Chelsea Devantez (Glamorous Trash with Chelsea Devantez) and Solomon Georgio (The Juice) help break down how Juicero got the squeeze, and discover why not all press is good press.Follow The Big Flop on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to The Big Flop early and ad-free on Wondery+. Join Wondery+ in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to The Big Flop early and ad-free. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Imagine it's 2018 and you're at the wrap party for Ava DuVernay's new movie, A Wrinkle in Time, when suddenly Oprah, one of the stars of the movie, takes the stage. In one hand, she holds a cup of green juice. In the other hand, she holds a microphone. And if Oprah's holding a microphone, you'd better be listening. Here's to A wrinkle in time.

She pauses and takes a sip of the juice, and then she continues. There's this great juice machine that makes these fresh pressed juices. So here's the deal, everybody. I have one, and now you all will have one. The crowd goes nuts. You'd think she'd given them all cars. Because here's the thing. The juice machine she's talking about, the Juicero,

it's one of the buzziest products to hit the market. But after a juicy tell-all article goes viral, everything goes to hell in a fruit basket. Because as it turns out, when it comes to cold-pressed juice, not all press is good press. A robotic gadget for to virtue your way into the upper crust of the wealthy and inanely stupid. You're not saving children from going hungry. You are just selling bags of fruit to people who can afford to buy a $400 juicer. Within the span of 60 seconds, the fate of Juicero was

sealed. From Wondery and At Will Media, this is The Big Flop, where we chronicle the greatest flubs, fails, and blunders of all time. I'm your host, Misha Brown, social media superstar and your main squeeze at Don't Cross a Gay Man. And today, we're talking about how Juicero got the squeeze. Hello, I'm Emily, and I'm one of the hosts of Terribly Famous, the show that takes you inside the lives of our biggest celebrities. And they don't get much bigger than the man who made badminton sexy. OK, maybe that's a stretch, but if I say pop star and shuttlecocks, you know who I'm talking about. No? Short shorts? Free cocktails? Careless whispers?

OK, last one. It's not Andrew Ridgely. Yep, that's right. It's stone-cold icon George Michael. From teen pop sensation to one of the biggest solo artists on the planet, join us for our new series, George Michael's Fight for Freedom. From the outside, it looks like he has it all, but behind the trademark dark sunglasses is a man

in turmoil. George is trapped in a lie of his own making with a secret he feels would ruin him if the truth ever came out. Follow Terribly Famous wherever you listen to your podcasts, or listen early and ad-free on Wondery Plus on Apple Podcasts or the Wondery app. Here to help me share the juicy tale of Juicero is comedian and host of The Juice, Solomon Giorgio. Hi. And comedian and host of the podcast Glamorous Trash with Chelsea Devontez.

It's Chelsea Devontez. Welcome to the show. I'm so happy to be here. I'm ready to hear all the juice from both of you. I'm so happy to be here. I'm ready to hear all the juice from both of you. Well, I think you both are so incredibly funny and we're so lucky to have you here today. Solomon, you're the host of an awesome podcast. I love your podcast, as it happens, called The Juice. Yes.

Tell our listeners, what is it about and are there any more in the works? It is currently in hiatus while we find a new home. But yeah, I'm currently working on it still. Unfortunately, the people who listen, I do apologize. I'm very lazy. Do not force myself to do anything. Self-care, I love that. No, we've rebranded it all to self-care.

Anything can be self-care if you say it is. Every piece of toxic behavior that I have to self-care. Anything can be self-care if you say it is. Every piece of toxic behavior that I have, self-care. Chelsea, and I can't help to ask you, what's the juiciest memoir you've recapped on your show? Oh my gosh. I mean, half the books are like, I'm gonna, you know, this is my life story. And the other half are like, I'm going to name every name and burn it down. And so, you know, Gabrielle Union dropped some good tea too. Really? Like when she talks about her first marriage, she does not hold back. And she tells you like, here's how I cheated on him, but here's how I could have done it better. Well, do either of you remember Juicero? No, I'm coming in cold. Oh, not at all. All right.

So the hero of our story today is a man whose only crime was loving juice too much, or so some would say. Doug Evans doesn't exactly start as your average Silicon Valley guy. At age 17, he trains as an Army paratrooper, and then he joins a graphic design firm. So Doug is lost. Doug is a lost soul. He's like, I'm 17. My name is Doug. I don't know what I should be. Doug Evans. It's two first names, so. It's always a red flag. So in 1999, he meets a woman named Denise Mari at a nightclub. A woman as beautiful as she is, vegan. What I'm trying to say is, she's vegan.

And the two hit it off and they start dating. I thought about this. I was like on and off vegan for a few years, not too long ago. But this is in 1999 when being vegan wasn't like super common. Yeah. You know, so it's like a whole personality. I feel like 1999 is when you had to like make your own grains.

Yeah. You were like, I have to make these oats for my oatmeal or I can't find them. Well, it's also like the 90s, like every standup comedian, one of their bits was making fun of vegetarians or vegans. Like they were like the most cursed individuals in the world.

Are either of you vegetarian or vegan? No. I'm worse than a vegetarian. I am flexitarian, which means that I really do my best to not eat meat. But like if I go over to your house and you're like, I made chicken, I'd be like, all right, you know, whatever. But yes, I am mostly vegetarian. Well, in any healthy relationship, you start taking on your partner's interests. So naturally, he starts eating more of a vegan diet and she obviously becomes a paratrooper.

JK, but not about the vegan part. So at age 33, Doug legit starts following a vegan diet and he's like, wait, this feels kind of amazing. Now, Doug has his own personal reasons to want to learn about health and nutrition. His mother died of cancer. His father died of heart disease. His brother had diabetes. So Mari teaches him that being more aware of his diet can actually help affect his health. She's like, you're cursed. Yeah. Your family is cursed. Eat a carrot.

Eat a carrot. So the problem is, though, for him, it's hard to eat healthy. There are preservatives and chemicals and artificial sugars and everything. And Doug calls it all poison. And he wishes there were an easier way to eat pure, healthy food. So what do you think? I mean, is all of that poison? No, everything is technically processed.

The term means it's so much broader than people think it is. And like GMOs are also natural as well. Like it's one of those things where it's like, I get the point, but there's ways to do it and still eat processed food and be healthy. Yeah, I feel like once you start calling foods poison, it's such a slippery slope into like,

this celery root is my vaccine. Yeah. You know, like it is such a like, I'm actually a doctor now. Now that I like am vegan, I'm a doctor and I don't, you know, need a cast on my arm because I'll heal it with like ginger. Yeah.

Well, in addition to her vegan diet, Mari also introduces Doug to the value of juice and not just any juice, cold pressed juice. And that's juice made using a hydraulic press instead of heat because heat takes out some of the nutrients. And in the classic case of a young grasshopper becoming the master, Doug takes Mari's love of vegan eating and runs with it. Like Olympic level sprinting runs with it. Have you ever taken on a partner's hobby like Doug? Because I'm literally sitting here thinking like my fiance is obsessed with Bigfoot. And we have watched every movie on Bigfoot that exists.

They're all the same. They're all equally as terrible. And yet I still watch them because that's what, folks? True love. So have you ever, like, taken on a partner's hobby like this? I personally have not, but I've seen literally almost all my friends do it. And it is fun to watch them disappear for a little bit. Always fun to watch a loved one disappear into a relationship

and wonder when they'll emerge again. Yeah. I guess I'm a horrible partner because I just turn a blind eye. Like, my husband has some comic books somewhere and I pretend that he doesn't. I'm not partaking. I will go numb. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I won't push back,

but I'm not listening. Yeah, like, I support, but I'm not in there with you. Well, as I mentioned, much of this downfall story comes back to one simple problem. Doug Evans is a man who loves juice just too much. He calls it the, quote, nectar of the earth. And according to the New York Times, he almost never drinks water since his diet is so liquid heavy. Maybe this is okay. I don't know.

It probably is. I'm not a doctor or a scientist or a vegan. So who am I doing? So it is important to contextualize Doug's obsession. There's an article in Well and Good that reminded me this was all just a few years before SoulCycle launched in 2006. So it's a time when people were really starting to worry about toxins. So I feel like Evans and Mari are kind of like ahead of the curve. So they start making juice out of their Manhattan loft in Chinatown. And soon people are

literally knocking at their door demanding more. So sometime around 2002, he and Mari buy a bunch of industrial strength juice presses and they start a juice business called Organic Avenue. Okay. So Organic Avenue produces fresh pressed juice, no additives, no fillers, all organic. The first store opens in 2006 and it takes off. In an interview with the Business for Good podcast, Doug says they go from $1,000 a month in sales to $10,000 to $100,000. Wow. Right? Good for them. Yeah.

This juice is flying off of the shelves. And the problem is it has to fly off the shelves because the products only have a three and a half day shelf life. Yeah. Yeah. It's cold pressed. I get it. Yeah. I mean, it's the problem with hating pasteurization and additives, you know? Yeah. So also in that well and good article, the CEO of another juicing machine describes a bottle of juice as a quote accessory that sends a statement about yourself what's the statement i think it's i drink juice i don't i'm better than you that's what i was wondering like is being vegan or like juicy is it like a gaudy piece of costume jewelry that

we're like here it is right in your face it's like an npr tote bag is what it is yeah yeah i will say this i do think if you're vegan like you are better than me like that's not an NPR tote bag is what it is. Yeah, yeah. I will say this. I do think if you're vegan, like, you are better than me. Like, that's not an incorrect sign. Oh, yeah, that is 100% true. You know what I mean? It's like, it's a label you've earned and like, yeah, you're better. Anyone who has any form of self-discipline, you are significantly better than I am as a person. Yeah, and you should get all the little extra money you want.

So even though they're selling tons and tons of juice, the margins on the business are super thin. But after 10 years, they do manage to expand to 10 stores, which is amazing. Yeah. But eventually, Doug and his partner sell their majority share. And his partner is Mari? Yes, his girlfriend. Okay, okay. I didn't know if you, like, switched it up and was like, I need a dude partner, though.

No, it's Mari. Okay, okay. So I didn't know if he like switched it up and was like, I need a dude partner though. No, it's Marty. Okay, okay. So they make a ton of money. But shortly after that, they are pushed out of Organic Avenue, according to an article on The Verge. And then a little while after that, Organic Avenue shuts down. Wait, how did they get pushed out? They sold their majority share. Yeah.

So they're no longer. Oh, you guys are both like, well, you know, when you sell that majority share stock. Like I would know, right? Well, it's one of the two things. They sold their majority share and they probably were a little annoying. So everybody else was like, we should push them out. You gotta go. They got like a board and the board was like, not y'all.

Okay. But I mean, I feel for them a little bit because getting shut out of your own business would be crushing for any founder. Yeah. No, I feel for them a little bit because getting shut out of your own business would be crushing for any founder. Yeah. No, not at all. If you buy my company and then tell me not to work, I will be very happy about that. You're right. You're right.

But Doug has another problem here. He's used to hitting the bottle multiple times a day. The juice bottle, that is. Oh. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But now where is he going to get his juice from? None of the juice on the market satisfies his needs. So his answer to this, he gets a bunch of blenders and mixers to make his own juice, but none of those things satisfy him either because he finds them super

annoying to clean. They're way too complex. So our poor hero is yearning for his, quote, They're way too complex. So our poor hero is yearning for his, quote, nectar of the earth. And then he has an aha moment. He realized his friends with Nespresso machines have managed to bring coffee shops into their home, so maybe he can make a Nespresso for juice. If I'm at Shark Tank right now, I'm like, let's hear this out. Like, I'm probably going in.

Yeah. It's not a bad idea. Not a bad idea. My thing though, if I'm in a hotel room and I see like a Keurig, I will Uber at 5am to go get a cup of coffee. I really don't like anything in like a pod. Yeah. Yeah. Of course. Yeah. Just juicers don't make that much of a mess and they all go down the garage disposal. I have a juicer and I'm not that mad about it. I mean, I bought a little machine to help me chop vegetables and I literally chop them next to the machine every day. The question was, would people want it or need it? But Evans was pretty sure the answer was yes.

But we're going to take a little juice break now before we find out more. So, to be clear, the machine isn't the part that excites Doug. It's the idea of making fresh fruit and vegetable servings available to everyone. He himself says, quote, it wasn't about the juicer. He says it's about the, quote, produce and supply chain. So he realizes he needs to create both the machine and the stuff to be squished into juice. So he wants to be a farmer.

Yeah. I love how the concept of eating the vegetables is just thrown out. Like, no. Yeah, it's gotta be blended. Like, never. So Evans goes to his ex-partner, Mari. They broke up? I should mention they've broken up at this point, but I couldn't find any juicy gossip on why. No, no, this is a crime. This is the juice I need. I don't like- Look, they had a business that they lost. That's not a relationship that will last.

No. I mean, but I do feel like it was probably on fairly good terms because he's like, hey, want to back my new juice idea? Yeah. Which I think is pretty bold to go to your ex for funding. Like, I could never because none of my exes have any money. I feel like maybe they actually never loved each other. They just loved juice. Their bond of juice brought them together.

So you think maybe the withdrawal from juice is what's bringing them back together? Yeah. I think they share an addiction. They're enabling each other. Yeah. Addicts will always help each other out. That's so funny. Go dependency.

So Mari puts in some money and then a vegan fashion designer connects him to someone from the Humane Society who connects him to someone at the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins. You know, the classic vegan fashion designer to venture capitalist pipeline. And just like that, it's time for him to work his pitching magic. So Doug Evans has said he's got kind of a knack for fundraising. So let's do a little imagination exercise, and I'll walk you through what it's like to be pitched by Doug Evans in 2013. Yes, 2013. I'm in a peplum top. Yes. I've got ballet flats on. I'm ready to hear the pitch.

Yes. You are a fancy venture capitalist. You are sitting in a glassy conference room. The cool leather of a custom-made chair cups the seat of your custom-tailored pants. It feels great, right? And your next appointment enters. It's Doug, wearing shorts and sandals. So I personally would be distracted by his crusty little vegan toenail staring at me in my sandals to listen to anything he had to say. Are they cargo shorts? If they're cargo shorts, get out. I bet they were. Well, onto the table,

he puts down a few bottles of the top juices on the market. And then he puts down a hideous metal contraption, a metal box with a hole somewhere in it with visible gears and springs, which apparently he had gotten welded together. Literally no idea how he brought this thing in with him. Let's just imagine some expensive suitcase. So he tells you to drink the grocery store juice and you're like, right, okay, sure, juice. And then he reaches into a bag and pulls out a Ziploc bag with diced up carrots and fruits all wrapped up in cheesecloth.

Oh no, a pocket of veggies from your pocket. Just loose garbage. Loose garbage is what you brought to this meeting, sir. So he puts it into the machine, presses a button, and juice comes dripping out of it. Ziploc fruit into a glass. And then he slides it to you across the table. So, would you drink this? I've drunk worse.

Yeah, I'm a real people pleaser. So I'd be like, oh, yum. Wow. Amazing. Conflict avoided. I love warm juice. You know what? Just pocket garbage juice.

Always been a dream of mine to just guzzle down. All right. So let's say you drink it. And according to Doug, after you take a sip, your next step is basically to slide him a blank check because you've never had such amazing juice in your entire life. I mean, I feel like I would have handed him that check with like $100 on it and been like, go get you some shoes and socks. But it must have been an impressive sell, and it must have been good juice. Aside from the taste, there were some other perks, like the packs, they were reusable, like printers and ink cartridges. Oh.

So this routine helps Doug raise $4 million in his seed round. So he relocates to Silicon Valley Valley and he has to get to work on design and engineering for the machine. And he has to get all that produce into packets or pouches or whatnot. You know, something better than just cheesecloth and Ziplocs. Sure. And he has to get it delivered to people who buy the machines. So that's the whole promise of this deal. And he has to get all of that done for this to work. And as Doug immerses himself into the project, he's starting to see the scope is bigger than he could have imagined. So he needs to keep fundraising. And thankfully, he's really, really

good at it. So by the time Juicero is ready to launch, Doug manages to raise $120 million. Whoa. Yeah. Yeah, we're like, cool. Wow. I honestly take back everything I ever said. A man in sandals raised $120 million. That's your class in patriarchy. That should be taught in schools. Oh, yeah. Just a picture of Doug and $120 million in blank checks next to him. You just have to be an overly confident white man in shorts and sandals. And honestly, it gets to you a lot in this world, unfortunately. Yeah. $120 million.

Oh, my God. Yeah, it's a lot of money. At least Elizabeth Holmes with her Theranos machine. Yeah. Like, I'm going to heal people. You know, they're like, I guess. Doug was like, you know how juicers already exist? How about another one? Well, Doug genuinely believes in his product and he's great at sharing that Kool-Aid, which by the way, Doug would never so much look at Kool-Aid, but he and his investors are so focused on the mission, they kind of forget the cost. Everyone investing thinks this is a great idea, but they're

millionaires. However, it needs to be sold to people who aren't. There are a lot of things that are good for you that most Americans can't afford. Health insurance. Basic medical care. But Doug feels excited about his mission to bring fruits and veggies and fresh juice to the world. And yeah, he said it's not about the machine. But for someone who doesn't really care about the machine, he makes the machine pretty extra. He and his partner spend three years making 12 prototypes till they land on the final machine. And that brings us to a game. We're going to do some multiple choice questions

to learn about the Juicero product. Amazing. Question one. How expensive was the original Juicero machine? Was it A, $100, B, $300, or C, $700? Yeah, I think it's C. $700, isn't it? Yeah, $700, I think, yeah.

It is $700. So that's the price of the machine. Now let's talk about how much the juice packets cost. So were these juice packets A, free, since you spent $700 on a machine, B, $1 to $3, or C, $5 to $8? Yeah, they should have been $3 to $5, but I know he's like, well, your average juice costs $15. Air One smoothies are going to be $50 in two years. Let's charge $8 a vegetable warm pocket. I'm going to probably guess the other way around and think that he was too ambitious and was giving them out for free.

No, they were expensive. They were $5 to $8 a little packet. I love being wrong, by the way. So does Doug. Yeah, so does Doug. So relatedly, what do we think the shelf life of a Juicero pack was? Was it A, three days, B, eight days, or C, one year? There's no way it could have been a year. Well, Organic Avenue was a three and a half day shelf life, so. Yeah.

And that's Doug-level juice. And I know Doug did one thing correct, which is he made the juice the way he wants it. And so I'm going to give it three days. I'm also going to give it three days. There's no way he made this easier on himself. This one was eight days. Oh, wow. But I still feel like that's not enough time. No. If they're $8 a packet and you're getting shipped in bulk. Yeah. I mean, like every time I go and buy a thing of lettuce, I put it in my fridge. I wait 14 to 15 days. I see that it's rotten. I throw it away.

I go buy another one. So this does track. Yeah, you're right. Eight days is not enough to let it rot in your fridge before realizing you never ate the vegetables you meant to. Wait, you can't freeze the pods? Ooh. Solomon, did you just save Doug's business in retrospect by thinking of the concept of a freezer? Yeah.

So which of the following were features of the Juicero machine? A, no cleaning required. B, Wi-Fi enabled. C, the head designer of Apple helped design it. Or D, all of the above. Wi-Fi? Yeah. the above. Wi-Fi? Yeah. What could the Wi-Fi connect to?

However, if the guy from Apple had a hand in it, maybe he was like, throw some Wi-Fi in here, baby. I mean, no, Doug. His whole thing was like, I don't want to clean. So, you know, I'll just go A. You didn't have to clean it. Oh, baby, this is an all of the above situation. Once it's offered to me, I'm going to take it. It was D. They had all of the above situation. Once it's offered to me, I'm going to take it. It was D.

They had all of those features. And to answer your question, the Wi-Fi was so that the machine would not work on packs that were expired. Oh, wow. The internet was scanning the veggies to be like, you're on day nine, loser. Fine, loser.

So three years and 12 prototypes later, they are ready to launch. So there's good news and bad news when it launches. So let's hear the good news first. Gwyneth Paltrow loves it. Given. In January 2016, she calls it the best product of the year on her website. They call Doug a, quote, goop friend. This is a big endorsement.

Yeah. I mean, this just reminded me, though. Did you all see that social media trend not that long ago?, like ordinary things that would kill Gwyneth Paltrow? No. The problem is, though, that the rest of the media is a little stumped at the time. The Guardian calls it, quote, mind-bendingly expensive coffee pods for juice. And a writer for the New York Times is clearly thrown off by the principle of the thing. Like, why should a juicer be so expensive? Why is it so complicated? Is this some weirdly self-indulgent, expensive bit of Silicon Valley nonsense?

These are all valid questions, and the answer is yes. D, all of the above. Yes. D, all of the above. So toward the end of 2016, demand is slower than they expected. So the board brings out the big guns and they say to Doug, hey, you know who would be really great to have join the team? This guy, Jeff. is the former president of Coca-Cola, who was then working at Campbell's Soup, which I think is hysterical

because on one hand, he has the perfect resume, drinks and vegetables. But on the other hand, it's like the polar opposite of super fancy artisanal fresh juice. Yeah, yeah. Coca-Cola is the poison Doug warned us about.

But Doug lets Dunn join. And before he knows it, Dunn has taken over. Dunn has done he knows it, Dunn has taken over. Dunn has done it. Yeah, Dunn has done it. And this seems like to be a trend. We'll invite people in and then they just like take over my business. But one of the first things he does is drop the price from $700 to $400. Okay. I'm sorry. If that was possible, then like, yeah, Dunn's a genius. Like if he was like, meh, in half, like that's a great deal. Well, Doug is like, I've always been planning to eventually release lower priced machines, but I don't think he wanted to do it because of slow demand. But he's undeterred. He's a man on a mission. So Doug is a resourceful guy. And he does a six degrees of separation to Oprah and manages to get this

in front of her. Oh, to be one of her favorite things? She raves about it. And in March of 2017, she gets a juicero for every cast and crew member of A Wrinkle in Time. You know, as if A Wrinkle in Time movie didn't go through enough. Their gift was a Juicero. Oh, God. Well, we do have a clip. Ultra endurance athlete and vegan king Rich Roll posted a clip of the moment on his Instagram feed. Let's watch. watch. Everybody's going to get an incredible juicing machine. It's called Juicero. I'm so excited. Here's to a wrinkle in time. I also wanted to say, so here's the deal, everybody. I have one and now you all will have one. and now you all will have fun.

This is much less exciting than you get a car. Yeah. Can you imagine? You get a Juicero. You get a Juicero. Unfortunately, it's within Oprah's character to hype a white guy with bad health advice. But she made it sound so exotic. The Juicero.

Why did she say it like that? Yeah, the juicero. Honestly, I want to give Ava DuVernay an Oscar for that moment where she gets way, way excited. So Goop is an evangelist for this product. Oprah is literally shouting about how much she loves it. Plus there's the price cut implemented by Dunn. So when Juicero lands in a Southern California Whole Foods, apparently sales started growing 20% month over month.

Wow. A bunch of sports team ordered juiceras for their locker room. Except there's a problem here, and you might be catching on to it. What's something that Gwyneth and Oprah and professional sports team have in common? They do things that are

very bad for your health, but pretend they aren't doing them. Yeah. Money. Oh, money? Money. Oh, money. Money. Sorry. I'm not familiar. They're rich. Oh, they're rich? Oh, wealth. Wealth. Yes, yes. That was not, wealth isn't anywhere nearby. My realm of knowledge. Sorry. Well, Doug is looking at this, and he's seeing nothing but success. The people who own it are averaging 9.2 usages a week, according to Doug, which is great, except when you think about it, at $5 to $8 a pack, that means people are spending around $200 a month on Juicero in addition to the machine. And to be clear, this machine, you can only use

the Juicero made juice packets. Yeah, Juicero's Wi-Fi is like, you're trying to put some carrots in here that we did not grow. I'm sorry. I don't know. I feel like if you're spending $200 a month on just juice, I don't think you deserve to be healthy. Like he started by saying, I want to get this out there for everybody. I want everybody to have access to juice. And I think he's lost that mission and that vision somewhere along the way. Everyone already had access to juice.

Blenders existed. We already had juice, my dog. Yeah, I don't know if he lost the mission. I don't think he ever started on it. I think he just fully... Good point. But Doug is like, who cares? The company's growing, so he decides to scale up.

And he moves the operation from their 10,000 square foot space to a space that is 100,000 square feet. For context, a football field is only 60,000 square feet. Yeah, I was trying to think in my one-bedroom apartments that I've had that, you know, so it's like the big one was 1,000 square feet. And so he had 1,000 of those. These people love calling something a campus and starting a company that way. There was probably like ping pong tables everywhere.

Beanbag chairs. Beanbag chairs. Well, they are ready to ramp up production big time for all of the demand that's surely going to come their way. This is a bold move. Very confident, but I wouldn't expect anything less from a man confident enough to show his crusty feet in a sales pitch. So then something terrible happens. Oh, thank God, yes. An article in Bloomberg comes out, and the headline reads, quote,

Silicon Valley's $400 juicer may be feeling the squeeze. Wow, amazing wordplay. So, sure, the Juicero, it was floating on the periphery of absurd tech gadget before. But this article is basically a Juicero hit job. The article, put two and two together, summarizes the absurd amount of investor money and makes a video to demonstrate what Juicero actually is. So this video has no narration, just subtitles. So let's watch and definitely provide commentary.

It is very sleek. It looks like an iPod. Yeah, it really does. It has just like one big light. I would be afraid it's recording me. Why do the packets look like IV bags? Yes, they do. So, it's just one button and you press it.

Oh. Oh, no. Oh, my God. You can just squeeze it with your hands. This lady's just squeezing it with her hands. Oh, my God. That's embarrassing. It looks very easy.

Wow, Bloomberg. A whole production. I do remember this and I'm very happy it was brought back to me. I'm sorry, can we take the Oscar away from Ava DuVernay and give it to Bloomberg? So to sum up for the listeners who didn't get to visually see that,

just to summarize this, a Bloomberg journalist just cut open the pack and squeezed the juice out with their hands. And I have some stats. So reporters were able to wring out 7.5 ounces of juice in a minute and a half. The machine yielded eight ounces in two minutes. I love that they're like racing it. You know what I mean?

I mean, I think like we're already there with like, listen, it was juice. You know what I mean? Like it was always juice. You never need. Well, they paid $400 for the extra half an ounce of juice. Okay. Wow. So this video goes wild.

And since it was posted about six years ago, it's racked up 4 million views. And the press and the whole internet, frankly, rips them a new one. And by new one, I do not mean one of the patented juice-filled packs. So Doug is fuming and he doesn't want to play nice here. He is furious about the Bloomberg article. He says it's deceptive and wrong and he wants to sue them for libel. But the damage is done. The thing that went viral wasn't the ridiculousness of the kind of person who can afford a $400 juicer and $8 packets. It's the ridiculousness of what was being sold.

Packets that didn't even need the $400 juicer. See, around this time, the stereotype of the elite Silicon Valley venture capitalist is crystallizing. A person who has too much money for their own good, who's totally self-indulgent and self-important. It's the kind of person the show Silicon Valley makes fun of. And unfortunately for Juicero, that show is winning Emmys in the years after Juicero's launch. And the article is too perfect of a representation of everything that's wrong with it. So no investors want to spend their money on it. No potential buyers want it.

It just turns into one big joke. Now, the CEO, Jeff Dunn, the soup man, tries to defend the company. I'm sorry, the guy who made cans of liquid and now is making pouches of liquid is like, no, no, no, no, no. Yeah, so he does this by making a video where he opens a pack of the juice to prove that there are chunks of vegetables in it. It's a Chunky Campbell's move. chunks of vegetables in it. It's a Chunky Campbell's move. They try to cut costs even more, but in the end, less than half a year after the Bloomberg article comes out, Juicero shuts down in September of 2017.

That took six months for them to shut down. It should have been the next day. All the Gwyneths in the world were like, no, this is great. Yeah, did Gwyneth ever print a retraction or Oprah? Like an oopsies? A goopsies. A goopsies? So, I mean, besides Solomon's wonderful idea of freezing juice packets,

is there anything else that could have saved this? Yeah, just put it in a container and sell the juice packet as a juice. Just be another juice company. Yeah, get rid of the machine and just sell the juice packet. Yep. All right, let's do a little where are they now? So Evans is still passionate about healthy food and the cause of food inequality. So I'm sorry. So food inequality really was supposed to be a part of this?

Yeah. No, Doug, you lied. Goopsies. Goopsies. It's going to be my new hashtag on Instagram. But he does want everyone to have access to healthy fruits and vegetables. And now he's fixated on sprouts. He wrote a whole book about them called The Sprout Book about growing and preparing sprouts, which has some good reviews online.

And I know that we were worried about poor Oprah if she was left heartbroken by her juicero collapse. Rest assured that she has moved on to a new $700 juicer, which made her favorite things list in 2018. No. Easy come, easy go. Now, here at The Big Flop, we are positive people, and we love to end our show with some silver linings. So, the people got to taste some really good juice, especially the hardworking cast and crew of A

Wrinkle in Time. And even though it still feels a little ridiculous, Evans has been somewhat vindicated for how over the top the Juicero seemed at the time because everything, every gadget in my house is Wi-Fi enabled now. So again, I think he was just ahead of his time. Yeah. What liquid is he on to now? Yeah. I know he's just grinding up sprouts, snorting them. I don't know. I just imagine just angrily using a juicer and be like, there could have been a better way. Yeah. I have to clean the pulp. One honest silver lining, I think, is the story does kind of call attention to how expensive and hard it is to get fresh produce without additives.

Part of why there's so much blowback in this is that it really drives home the idea that healthy eating is only available to precious few. Brought attention to that during that time. Are there any silver linings that you can think of? Like every now and then I think to myself, like I should eat healthier. And I feel like I won't have that feeling for a while now. Like I think it's a few months before I'll feel the guilt of you should have more vegetables. Look, I think rich people losing a lot of money is always a very good thing.

And I think we should always be happy when it does happen. Yeah. This is our new Christmas hallmark movie. Just rich people losing money. All right. it does happen. Yeah, this is our new Christmas Hallmark movie. Just rich people losing money. Alright, now that you both know the full tale of Juicero, would you consider this a baby flop, a big flop, or a mega flop?

I think Doug has a lot of potential and that he has a bigger flop in him. So I will give this just a big flop. I wouldn't give him mega. I think he has something brewing that he's definitely going to regret much more later. I'm going to give this a baby flop. All the people who work on were just rich people. And so it's like a lovely, nice flop.

Yeah. In order to be a big flop, I would need to see like a school cafeteria, like fundraise for the Juicero. All right. Well, thank you so much to our lovely guests, Solomon Giorgio and Chelsea DeVantes, for joining us here on The Big Flop. And thanks to all of you for listening. Now buckle up, because next week,

we're going on a thrill ride with comedians Sasheer Zemaita and Chris Gethard to one of the most infamous water parks, Action Park. While no one was injured during our recording, we can't say the same for the park patrons. If I got attacked by someone else's teeth and they weren't in their mouth, I think I would just walk away and never come back. If you like The Big Flop, you can listen early and ad-free on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey. The Big Flop is a production of Wondery and At Will Media, hosted by me, Misha Brown, produced and edited by Levi Sharp, written by Marina Tempelsman, engineered by Zach Rapone.

Our executive producers are Rosie Guerin, Will Malnati, and Samantha Story for At Will Media, developed by Christina Friel. Legal support provided by Carolyn Levin of Miller, Korzenik, Summers, Raymond. Producers for Wondery are Matt Beagle and Grant Rutter. Senior producer is Lizzie Bassett. Senior story editor is Phyllis Fletcher. Managing producer is Ricky Wiebe. Music supervisor is Scott Velasquez for Frizz and Sink. Our theme song is Sinking Ship by Cake.

And executive producers are Morgan Jones and Marshall Louie for Wondery. We are on a sinking ship. We are on

a sinking ship.